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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Daisuke deals near no-no in defeat of Phillies

Juan Castro’s flare
over shortstop Marco Scutaro's head broke up Daisuke Matsuzaka's no-hit
bid with two outs in the eighth inning. The Red Sox still sailed to a
5-0 win over the Phillies.

Four outs separated the Phillies from
suffering their first no-hitter since 1978. It wasn't for a lack of trying. The Red Sox are spinning this as Daisuke's atonement
for an awful outing against the Yankees after which he called out his
catcher. Speaking on last night's performance, Red Sox manager Terry
Francona told reporters “From the very beginning, you could see he got
in a rhythm. That’s the best fastball we’ve seen. He established that.
His slider, he had one of the best changeups we’ve seen, we made some
great plays behind him - that was fun to watch.” (courtesy of
ex-Phillies scribe Scott Lauber, who now covers the Sox for the Boston
Herald.)

From the Phillies' side, it was a night of hitting the
ball hard but right at them, starting in the first with a Chase Utley
screamer to leaping second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who flipped to first for the
double play; the Phillies hit into two twin killings, the other
happening on a nice play at third by two-time Gold Glove winner Adrian
Beltre. Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth also scorched a couple balls to no
avail. Boston played great defense all night.

Meanwhile, Kyle Kendrick kept it a game for the first
four innings until he became irrevocably untethered in a four-run
fifth, finishing with eight hits, two walks and five runs over 4 2-3
innings, the first time a Phillies' starter couldn't survive at least five
innings since April 14, which was Kendrick's 1 2-3 inning disaster
against Washington. That cleared the mound for bullpen B-listers Antonio
Bastardo, David Herndon and Nelson Figueroa, who hadn't pitched since
May 3, to pitch 4 1-3 shutout innings, the night's only real positive.

No biggie - Tim Wakefield and Roy Halladay decide the rubber game today at 1:35. Time for Mick Billmeyer to dust off his knuckleball during BP.

Random thought of the game: Raul Ibanez's failure to get to a ball to left played a key role in Boston's rally. Stat
of the game: Greg Dobbs is now 10-71 (.141) his last two seasons as a
pinch hitter, including just 3 XHB with 9 BBs to go with 16 Ks.
(courtesy of MG)

16 Comments

Things that I still think that would be amazing if happened for a play off run that I think is only a 2% chance of happening aka very UNLIKELY to happen but isn't completely crazy.

A) Ed Wade decides to give Oswalt to Philadelphia for some middling prospects. And for those of you who say this is crazy, we just need a slight bump in payroll. We have the Moyer contract coming off the books this year to accommodate Oswalt's contract, we are a contender this year and next plus Ed Wade's trade history is awful/ good for us now.

B) The Mariners are out of contention and they want prospects for Cliff Lee. Since they already know about Aumont and Ramirez and Gillies, they end up taking two of them back for Cliff Lee. In effect, the Phils would have gotten a free minor leaguer for a half a season rental.

Wouldn't trading for another starter be a giant admission by Rube that moving Lee wasnt the right move?

Trading for a quality starter will cost prospects which of course depletes the farm. So how can you trade a Cy Young winner to get prospects, to turn around six months later and trade prospects to get another pitcher? How do you posture that the future is a concern and then turn around and show that the present is a priority?

dennyb will probably complain about this lineup on the ground that Utley & Howard haven't gotten enough rest & Gload & Valdez should be starting in their place.

I'm with Heather. We've already got one starter out of the lineup, being replaced by garbage. Do we really need both Dobbs AND Hoover in the lineup? That's a ridiculous drop-off at 3 of our 8 starting positions.